Nicholas Lee Paul will be T&T's lone chance at a medal af­ter fel­low cy­clist Kwe­si Browne fell dur­ing the men's keirin at the Paris Olympic Games in France on Sat­ur­day.

Paul won heat five in the first round to progress to Sun­day's quar­ter­fi­nals at the Na­tion­al Velo­drome as an au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­er. Ear­li­er, Browne placed third in heat four and ad­vanced to the repechage but lat­er, he was in­volved in a high-speed crash and had to be stretchered off in repechage heat four had to be stopped.

Paul will com­pete in the quar­ter­fi­nals which start at 5.29 am Sun­day. The first four rid­ers in each heat qual­i­fy for the semi­fi­nals.

Paul told Guardian Me­dia Sports, "I was hun­gry for the sprint but even more for the keirin now be­cause my main goal is to try and get a medal. The Keirin is al­ways an edgy kind of race so it was al­ways go­ing to be tight. The idea was to qual­i­fy as best as pos­si­ble and to do as least races."

Paul did not reach the quar­ter­fi­nals of the match sprint and it meant he had a two-day added rest and train­ing.

He said, "Yes, the rest has been good. Those guys have been rac­ing four days straight from team sprint com­ing in­to this so the rest should be good for me”

On draw­ing the pole po­si­tion, calm and cal­cu­lat­ing, Paul said, "I don’t have a pref­er­ence (in terms of where he is drawn), at this lev­el of rac­ing, what­ev­er po­si­tion you get, you have to race so I got one and I had to race from there.

"When I was over­tak­en, my fo­cus was to con­trol it as best as pos­si­ble to get to the line with­in the top two."

Paul achieved that by edg­ing out Matheus Rudyk of Poland in the fifth and fi­nal heat of the open­ing round.

"It all worked out as planned, now comes rest and re­cov­ery," said Paul, who is en­ter­ing to­day's com­pe­ti­tion with a clear mind.

"I am go­ing af­ter a medal to­mor­row but I will need to ex­e­cute a per­fect race. Every­one here is at the top of their game and is equal­ly as gassed as each one. You have to work out each race to a per­fect end­ing."

Ques­tioned if he had any pref­er­ence in terms of po­si­tions and be­ing in front, Paul said, "I would not say that me be­ing in front is bet­ter, I try to race back or front, I try to race."

Paul will race in quar­ter­fi­nal heat two of three against Cana­di­an Nick Wammes, Colom­bian Cris­t­ian Or­te­ga, Great Britain's Hamish Turn­bull, Japan's Shin­ji Nakano and men's sprint cham­pi­on Har­rie Lavrey­sen of the Nether­lands at 5.35 am.

Browne, who was third in the first round in a com­pet­i­tive heat four, be­hind even­tu­al win­ner Mikhail Yakovlev and sec­ond-placed World cham­pi­on Kevin Quin­tero was forced in­to a repechage. Com­pet­ing in heat four with on­ly the top two guar­an­teed a place in to­day's quar­ter­fi­nals.

It was a bruis­ing con­test among Browne, Cana­da's James Hedg­cock, Colom­bian David Or­te­ga, and Kaza­khstan’s Au­drey Chi­gay. The T&T cy­clist had to give his all, but af­ter be­ing drawn in one, Browne was passed with two laps to go and in the fi­nal lap go­ing for a gap that would push him in­to the lead, it ap­peared there was a col­li­sion of wheels and Browne tum­bled to the ground to a col­lec­tive groan of pain from the crowd.

Af­ter a ten-minute wait, Browne was tak­en off on a stretch­er and with a neck brace but could be seen rais­ing his hands and ac­knowl­edg­ing the crowd.

The T&T Olympic team is­sued an up­date on Browne's con­di­tion through team man­ag­er Rowe­na Williams via In­sta­gram.

She said: "Just a quick up­date on Kwe­si, he is fine.

"The med­ical team here at the Velo­drome did a won­der­ful job in tak­ing care of him.

"They've done some quick x-rays to make sure there were no bro­ken bones or ma­jor in­juries to his head.

"And Kwe­si is fine, he is walk­ing and talk­ing so we just want to con­tin­ue to thank every­body for their sup­port. And con­tin­ue to sup­port Nicholas as he goes through the fi­nals."

Lat­er, Williams told Guardian Me­dia Sports, "He is back in the ho­tel now but the doc­tor has ad­vised him to get as much rest as pos­si­ble and they will ob­serve as he did get a hard lash to his head. He was knocked out for a while but by the time they took him off the track he had re­gained con­scious­ness.

"The med­ical team have done a great job. He fell not very far from where his fam­i­ly and friends were sit­ting so it was es­pe­cial­ly tough for them,” she not­ed.

"It has been a test­ing time for all es­pe­cial­ly his fam­i­ly so I be­lieve he is glad they are here and they are very hap­py they are so close so they know what is go­ing on,” said Williams, who is al­so pres­i­dent of the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion.

She con­firmed Browne is speak­ing now.

“Yes, he is sad that all the work he has done he can­not move on. He is very dis­ap­point­ed and he says he worked so hard for this but we are all glad he is okay in the end.

"There are no bro­ken bones. It is a con­cus­sion so they are mon­i­tor­ing him care­ful­ly to en­sure every­thing is okay. It is al­ways bet­ter to be safe and the med­ical team is fol­low­ing all the pro­to­cols,” added a re­lieved Williams.